The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 Anglo-French film, set in August 1963 and based on the novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it stars Edward Fox as the assassin known only as "the Jackal" who is hired to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. The film opens with the recreation of an actual event, the assassination attempt on the President of France, Charles de Gaulle, on 22 August 1962, by the militant French underground organisation OAS in anger over the French government's decision to give independence to Algeria. The group, led by Jean Bastien-Thiry, raked de... Gaulle's car, an unarmoured Citroën DS, with machine gun fire in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart, but the entire entourage escaped without injury. Within six months, Bastien-Thiry and several other members of the plot were caught and executed. The remaining OAS leadership decides to make another attempt, and hires a professional assassin who chooses the code name The Jackal . He demands half a million US dollars for his services, so to raise the Jackal's fee, OAS members rob several banks. Meanwhile, the Jackal commissions a rifle disguised as a crutch and fake identity papers.
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| Release date: | May 16, 1973 |
| Directed by: | Fred Zinnemann |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 145 Minutes |
| Producer: | Sir John Woolf |
| Editor: | Ralph Kemplen |
| Music by: | Georges Delerue |
| Cinematography: | Jean Tournier |
| Screenplay by: | Kenneth Ross |
| Adapted from: | The Day of the Jackal |
| Genre: | Thriller, Action |